Things had been going so well for Joe Kelly.
The Boston Red Sox right-hander entered the week on the heels of consecutive quality starts, having allowed just three total runs over his previous 13 1/3 innings. It appeared to be a sign that Kelly, who’d routinely been smacked around earlier in the season, finally was turning a corner.
Then, Monday happened.
Kelly staggered through the worst start of his major league career in the Red Sox’s Memorial Day matinee, getting the hook after just 1 2/3 innings in an eventual 7-2 loss to the Minnesota Twins. He surrendered eight hits despite facing just 14 batters and finished with more runs allowed (seven) than outs recorded (five).
“A number of pitches found their way to the middle of the plate,” manager John Farrell told reporters after the game, as aired on “Red Sox Extra Innings LIVE,” “and whether it was hard contact or soft contact, a high number of base hits. They put up six in the (second) inning, and (we’ve) got to go to the bullpen at that point, in that second inning. A short day, and unfortunately, we got a hole dug pretty darn deep here (Monday).”
The Twins have been one of the hottest teams in baseball over the past few weeks — Monday’s win was their seventh in the last nine games — and Kelly felt the full brunt of an offense that’s averaging 5.4 runs per game in the month of May. Minnesota finished with 16 hits in the ballgame, and the bottom six hitters in the Twins’ order each notched at least two apiece.
“They came out swinging real hot,” Kelly told reporters. “They’d done that the past few games. It was something that I knew they were going to come out swinging, it was just they were right on the heater every time.”
The final blow for Kelly came in the form of a three-run home run by Trevor Plouffe with two outs in the second inning. Plouffe’s bomb put the Twins up 7-0, and Kelly faced just one more batter before getting yanked.
Kelly now has allowed a home run in seven of his nine starts and — more alarmingly — five or more runs on five separate occasions. Could a move to the bullpen be in the 26-year-old’s future? According to Farrell, not yet.
“There’s no decision here in this moment,” the Sox skipper told reporters. “He’s shown us the ability to go out and work deep into a ballgame. There’s no denying his stuff. It’s a matter of consistent location with his fastball. And when he’s in those games where the runs have come about, it’s typically been mislocated fastballs that find their way to the middle of the plate.”
Thumbnail photo via Marilyn Indahl/USA TODAY Sports Images
